Poly People Just Got an Oppression Level Up!

The douchenozzle in question was stupid enough to cite awesome education site Loving More in his rant. Well, I’m not one to let a good link go unplugged! For those who want to know more about poly, there you go.

James M. Arlandson, American Baffled Grandparent Hearing Their Kids Come Out for the First Time:
From Same-Sex Marriage to Polygamy and Polyandry

Man, I’ve actually been kinda waiting for a post like this for a while!

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

  • Blah blah, slippery slope, blah, gay marriage will lead to polygamous marriage and that’s scarier so don’t support fags, blah.

No no, not because of that. The overall argument is the same tired horseshit we’ve seen a million times before and YAWN…

Sorry, I seem to have put myself to sleep just talking about it.

No, I’m excited because it’s the first one I can remember seeing that doesn’t just circle around the usual polygamy/polyandry crap, but actually shows awareness and response to actual real polyamorous people like me and my partner…s… and my partners’ partners.

Now that might not seem like something to get excited about. In fact, it probably seems like something to dread. Oh Bob damnitt, the wingnuts have realized we exist and they should hate us! Time to roll up the dinner plates, because party’s over!

Right?

But that’s because you’re forgetting that for the tiniest minority communities, the worst thing is the complete invisibility. The way people’s brows react in much the same way as they would to the information that unicorns exist when you tell them about yourself. As such, almost all the activism ends up being visibility, visibility, visibility.

The moment when that visibility succeeds to the point where Gomer’s dimmer cousin finds out you exist and is horrified enough to hold a poorly-spelled sign and rant about you on sites like American Thinker is the crucial step where a minority community’s struggle really gets to begin.

The moment where ignorance leads to backlash might herald a more annoying era, but it also means the beginning of actual growth and actual acknowledgment of social issues vital to one’s community and the first shape of things to actually struggle against rather than having to explain why it sucks that nobody bothers to care enough about you to hate you.

It’s the beginning of a long road that culminates in hating the next tiny minority that pops onto everybody’s collective radar. Like those damn fluberts! Ooh, how I hate them!

So yeah, forgive me if my poly pride nerd flag is a little high for this one, but I’m one Free Republic rant about the evils of asexuality away from having a full trifecta!

I keep hearing same-sex marriage (SSM) activists assuring us that no one else will legally redefine the essence of marriage, after they enjoy the privilege of doing so. It’s a red herring to distract us from the real issue: redefining it for them alone.

Yes, I’m sure these SSM activists claiming that they just want special dispensation on the thing your band of psychotics for some reason gets universal ownership is totally a real thing and not at all based on the same fantasy and outright fabrication behind the “science” article you linked to (for those who want to mango dive into that, take my free advice and don’t. There’s toxic and then there’s “oh, I recognize that Criminal Against Humanity Scott Lively talking point”).

Did they also tell you that gays only want to break up heterosexual marriages by being supernaturally sexy like gay incubii and that marriage is just a red herring to make stuck-in Christians feel super-jealous?

But if we redefine marriage for one group, there’s no logical reason to deny other nonconformist advocates their right to do so, especially if they successfully argue their version of marriage on utilitarian grounds — it benefits or does no harm to society.

And we just can’t have that. I mean, if we let marriage be… you know, what it is, a means of legally protecting the notion of created family and allowing certain protections to be granted to such couplings of love because of limp-wristed pansy reasons like A) LOVE or B) an agreement and commitment of two or more consenting adults or C) whether we should fucking care because it doesn’t really harm anyone when consenting adults do stuff to each other.

I mean, how will the sanctity of my ill-advised media-stunt marriage to a Vegas hooker in the presence of my Elvis impersonator peers possibly be upheld and survive, when utilitarian terrorists are arguing that decades-long proven commitments between partners of the same sex or stable triads should have the same option of legal protection and marriage?

I don’t know who invented the slippery slope fallacy, but he or she shouldn’t be decorated with a medal.

Really?

Cause, with the rate at which you and your ilk drop to the ground to suck that slippery slope like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, I pretty much assumed that if you found whoever invented the slippery slope, you’d rush off to get married in Washington.

Sometimes the slope exists, it really is slippery, and people actually slide down it.

Well, they do now, you sick bastard!

Maybe you should try taking a break from the slope and let shit dry before you start bitching about our upkeep. Jeeze!

In the 1950s, Lucy and Ricky were shown in separate beds. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Brady Bunch parents shared the same extra-wide king-size bed, but were far apart. Today?

Er… didn’t your parents ever explain… Ah jeeze, I hate having to do this.

Um… James… you should sit down. Um… James, it turns out that things on TV aren’t actually real life, they’re make believe, like the Easter Bunny or Market Forces. People back then, like your parents, still fucked… In fact they fucked a lot. Your parents have probably had filthy monkey sex on pretty much every stationary object in the house and at least half of the moving objects including the family dog. It was the only way they could spice up the drudgery of a society that considered Brady Bunch “entertainment”.

I’m sorry I have to break this to you, kiddo, but you had to know sometime. Now, if you don’t mind, your mom needs me to bring her this spare handcuff key so she can unchain your father from the fuck harness.

No need to describe primetime or daytime TV. The sex drive is powerful, and society has publically slid down that slippery, muddy slope long ago.

That is true. At that time, it was a literal slippery, muddy slope, because homo sapiens was literally speciating for the first time when this happened. Fuck, the sex drive is so powerful it predates the speciation of mammals!

Here are two more nonconformist groups clamoring for their share of the marriage mud pie.

First, polygamy.

zzzZZZZzzzz… Uh, what? Sorry, I blacked out there all of a sudden in sheer boredom.

Yeah, think I’m going to just skip over this section. But for those of you worried about missing something, let me faithfully transcribe everything of substance:

MUSLIMS!!!! AIEEEE!!!!

Yeah, it seems that now that Mormons are officially wingnut members in good standing, the arguments against the hideous, abusive because they are traditional, marriages known as polygamy have shifted exclusively to being about the not-terribly-frequent practice of polygamy in a few tiny African muslim communities instead of mostly about it.

And it’s every bit as sane as you’d expect from the American Thinker.

We now peer, not leer, into polyamory or open, nonmongamous relationships, including open marriages.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Sorry. You just don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for something like this. And it’s a legitimate smorgasbord!

I mean… Polyamory? Nonmonogamous relationships? Open Marriages???

This is being covered in an article by a guy who’s only life accomplishment to date has been being too stupid and crazy for a diploma mill online bible college designed to steal the money from parents so paranoid and overprotective, they don’t even want to risk their artifact home-schooled children having to leave the nest to receive their substandard useless faux-college-education. Well that and creating possibly the saddest resume I’ve ever seen.

When someone so unemployable as this literally slumming it in the dregs of wingnut welfare because every other rung on the way down was too hard to cling to is aware that polyamory and open marriages exist, we have officially made it to the big leagues.

At this point it’s only a matter of time before poly people start having their own deeply disappointing overly-corporatized lobby organization to complain about being sold out by!

~Dare to dream the impossible dream~

Traditionally, monogamy has been defined as relational and sexual exclusivity between one man and one woman.

…yesssss. That is true.

I’d dare say in our modern flubert-stained society where words have become meaningless playthings to our dark and powerful gods, monogamy still means relational and sexual exclusivity…well that and the occasional frequent cheating. But definitely that in theory.

Hell, all power to those for whom monogamy is a natural and pleasant fit. The whole point of figuring out new relationship models that fit people’s life experiences better is to provide more options.

Heck, if we can make your lives easier by getting all the people who simply can’t commit long-term to sexually and romantically exclusive relationships out of your dating pool once and for all (where they can stop wasting your goddamned time), we are more than happy to help.

But some nonconformists say that while they have their primary partnership, they allow hook ups with others.

AAAIIIIIEEEEE!!! The End Times are here! Seas are boiling with blood! Cats and Dogs are sleeping together! Homes in San Francisco are suddenly reasonably priced! Mass Hysteria!

People in relationships who consent together for one or both people in the relationship to explore sexual relationships with people they are sexually interested in as long as consent is maintained and communication remains open instead of just having partners clandestinely slip off to a truck stop bathroom in the middle of the night and lie about it?!?

What in Sam Hell is this world coming too?!?!?

Oh, and I should mention that this sentence in the original contained two links, the latter worthy of its own post, mostly because of this line:

A gay friend of mine, Los Angeles blogger Daniel Blatt, who believes in monogamy and sees the advantages to same-sex marriage, was taken aback when he searched on the words “marriage equality” and found very little mention of monogamy on Web sites promoting such. When I helped Blatt with his research, I stumbled upon a Web site hostile to monogamy that is promoted as a marriage resource by several major gay Web sites, including those of Marriage Equality USA, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Educators Network, Equality Texas, the Kentucky Fairness Alliance, and even the Metropolitan Community Church.

Yes, apparently the World’s Dumbest Homosexual is so bad at being gay he needs a straight homophobe writing opinion for SFGate’s help just to research marriage equality.

I don’t think I’m going to top that one tonight.

“It’s a redefinition of marriage,” says one.

You just know that the gay couple quoted deliberately chose that line specifically to bait people like Jimmy Boy here into having epic-level conniptions.

And he could no more help salivating at it than Pavlov’s dog.

A mature student in my class

He is not currently listed in the faculty of any googleable university, so let me just rewrite part of this for him.

A mature student in my class I made up told us of her friend who is in a polyamorous relationship. Her husband gives her “free rein,” so to speak.

Ooh, she’s into pony play too? “Friends” (yeah, sure and that anal plug was just a gift for your cousin, uh huh) of imaginary Christians be into all sorts of kinky shit, aren’t they?

Oh, you just meant that it is mind-shattering for you to imagine a relationship structure wherein a woman is a full person with her own sexual interests rather than a pet and object a husband may use to demonstrate high social market value to the other guys in Jerkoff Springs Gated Community when they go off for their weekly golf game and five-man orgy?

I don’t know what I could have possibly been thinking.

Derek McCullough and David S. Hall, Ph.D., say monogamy is a cultural myth and polyamory is an option:

…Much of the evidence seems to indicate that human attainment of the cultural ideal of monogamy is a myth. The moral argument for monogamy is a weak position. A better moral argument can be made regarding what is best for each individual and for society, that is, do we make life better for each and all by insisting on sex only in monogamous marriage of heterosexual couples, or on letting individuals find responsible ways of relating that, in Pagan terms, “harm none”. Liberal religion has taken a fine stance supporting homosexual and heterosexual couples, and unmarried couples as well. What is so hard about seeing the parallels to the “more than a couple” part?

MUA HA HA HA HA!

I just can’t get enough of wingnuts being too stupid to avoid quoting passages from academic papers that rip them to shreds.

Yes, it does admit that polyamory is indeed an option. And it does indeed use the word myth. But fuck, if it weren’t for the fact that your readership is functionally illiterate, they might be having as much fun as I am with the fact that the first line is not saying monogamy is a myth, but rather the cultural expectation that everyone is monogamous and naturally fits into a monogamous relationship model is a myth.

Again, hooray for the people who do, but for those who don’t or for those who just want to explore polyamorous relationship structures cause they look fun, it’s nice that there’s other options and other models.

And it really can help the survivability of a long-term relationship when the exploration of the fun and novelty of NRE or a new attraction doesn’t have to mean the end of a long-term stable couple or unnecessary self-sacrifice and the resentment that comes with it.

In fact, that’s exactly why I’m in a polyamorous relationship. I didn’t want my partner growing to resent me because my asexuality was cutting her off from experiencing relationships involving mutual sexual chemistry. I didn’t want new crushes to be constantly compared in value to our continued time together. And most importantly, I wanted us to be in a relationship model that worked best for her and for us, one we both consented to, rather than something sacrificed to simply due to cultural expectation.

I have no belief we would be together today if that wasn’t the case and we’ve been together over 7 years now.

For those for whom monogamy works, yay! For those for whom polyamory works, yay! For those for whom open relationships, swinging, occasional threesomes, shared masturbation about the weatherman, dating entire pacific island nations, or sacrificing on a dark altar at yearly intervals works, yay! The whole point is to find what works for you and your relationship and to grow enough as a society so that people who find checking the default box isn’t for them don’t have to claw, scratch, and bite for the same social regard and protections.

And if that gives guys like Jimmy, who have mild heart attacks at the notion of a “free reign” wife, a good strong freak out?

All I can say is…

Good.

In the old days, polyamory used to be called adultery or fornication.

What do you want from him? He already used up his correct “skies are blue” statement on the monogamy definition, you weren’t really expecting him to go 2 for 2 were you?

Oh right shock and outrage about yet another wingnut failing to understand the notion of consent in relationships.

Wait a minute!

Fornication?

…uh… shit, I’m going to have to sit him back on the couch and explain that married people fuck, aren’t I?

Sigh.

So you see little Jimmy, about seven times a day, your mommy gets something we call an “itch” and she needs to….

But the “moral argument for monogamy is a weak position.”

Yes, the moral argument for forced monogamy is a pretty damn weak position, just like the moral argument for forced heterosexuality or forced gender roles in marriage.

Perhaps if they didn’t have the likes of you defending them…

Apparently, in a diverse and tolerant society any point of view and feeling becomes the new norm.

This pretty much sums up every wingnut freakout ever to the notion of options. To conservatives, there are no such things as options. There is only the uncomfortable and unnatural box you destroy yourself trying to fit.

If someone ever tries and create a new option because the sight of you mangling yourself into a twisted knot of broken bones and rotted flesh tugs on every strand of their empathy, they aren’t providing an option, they are trying to destroy the old box you’re used to and force you into a new mandatory box that’s not at all familiar.

The notion that there could be a box that actually fits them is inconceivable. The notion that a box that fits better for people who are not them and they can just stay in their misery box if they really want to is sacrilege.

By bringing in a box in the first place they have made the wingnut think about their own box. And making wingnuts think is the only crime we can reliably refer to as high treason!

McCullough and Hall use the long history of polygamy to shore up the naturalness of polyamory. It’s evolutionary biology, you see. Liberal religion can endorse it. In their whole piece they project such a cool, open-minded vibe and write in such soothing psychological terms,old-school vices become new-school virtues.

Yeahhhh, I’ll just let you read that whole article yourself and let it deliver the adequate burn for me.

In any case, since we humans are so bad at monogamy, other freely chosen relationship structures should also be supported.

Thanks guys for the assist!

Things are a little confusing for me, however.

Pfft.

Yes. Yes, you certainly are confused in a lot of ways.

Oh man, I am seriously enjoying watching his brain just overheating over the sheer novelty of learning to hate a new concept to him.

Polyamorists may not get married, but if they were to do so, apparently they would become polygamists of sorts. Yet it would not be limited to one heterosexual husband and four heterosexual wives as we see in Islam’s old-school polygamy. Instead, we’re entering a brave new world, so any combination of men and women and sexual orientation would do (e.g. four “husbands”).

Oh dear, you can just see the gears just grinding together here.

But… people can like marry all normal like and then consent to other partners in a way that makes a direct mockery of our bullshit arguments against gay marriage? Or people can form stable triads or quads or more without defaulting to abusive sexist systems where one collected property? The property themselves could have like multiple partners of their own and marry them? Uh uh… central system at critical levels, must enact emergency brain shutdown protocols, keyword muslim.

Despite the confusion right now, we would get used to their marriage, just as we’re getting used to SSM. “Progress” is inevitable.

I mean, seriously, why don’t all these minority populations have the good sense to shut up and disappear so that we can have all the time in the world to “evolve” at our own pace and adjust to the concepts being presented. And if that just happens to be until we die. And then after our children die. And their children… Well, then, that’s just the price you should have to pay for going against God’s poorly transcribed plan!

And yeah, rolling my eyes at the notion that we’ll even begin fighting for legal protections for long-term triads in our society any time soon. Thanks to the oh so “traditional” polygamous assholes gumming up the works, I don’t think you’d even get a majority of polyamorous people behind the notion right now.

Sadly, we probably have a lot of growing as a society especially about the non-property nature of women and protecting against marital abuse to do before we can really get wide-spread support for non-fucked-up poly marriages with real legal protections.

And that’s before getting to the point that we haven’t yet fully sown up universal marriage rights for two-person same-sex couples who want them (and yes, that is DEFINITELY the fight right now). Or even fully entrenched the expectation that marriage is a union of equals celebrating love not the purchasing of property.

In short, shit’s still got a long way to go before the “dark” future he’s decrying.

One gay activist who works hard at redefining marriage says the ultimate goal is to change society. “In the end we will have so remade society, it will have to adjust to us, because it will seem absurd not to.” Others say marriage has no essence, so we can “fiddle” with it as society evolves. Scholars rewrite the definitions in the trade dictionaries and encyclopedias to go with the muddy flow and establish new norms. Now the public has to catch up.

Oh, sorry, I interrupted your one-man pity parade with my sobering reality. No, I totally agree, having people acknowledge that you don’t actually own a legal concept because you bitch about the sanctity of words a lot is totally the worst oppression any group could possibly suffer. You poor dear, etc…

Further, to borrow a question from SSM advocates, how would polygamy or polyamory harm your individual traditional marriage?

Whether or not it harms an individual marriage is difficult to say, but here are some knotty issues to ponder:

I gotta say, it’s refreshing to see that they are as intellectually bankrupt on this argument as they are on the “SSM harms traditional marriage” argument.

Well, gosh, it turns out there’s pretty much nothing two or more consenting adults do to each other that can even remotely be argued harms my whiny little breeder marriage of convenience other than revealing the hollow lie of it…

Um, er… Engage bullshit mode, STAT!

The polyamorists want to get married at a Bed and Breakfast, privately owned by a crazy religious simpleton who advertizes for wedding parties. But he objects to the whole lifestyle (too irreligious and confusing) and denies them his own facility? Would he be sued?

And then they’ll steal his wife and take her off on a wild road trip leading to her having a pansexual polyamorous self-discovery.

Right?

Cause otherwise this has literally nothing to do with harming actual marriages and is just a barely rewritten twist on the whining self-martyring you assholes do when you’re not allowed to openly discriminate against minority groups with your private business or public facility.

And we both know you wouldn’t be doing that, right?

What about the employers providing the partners with insurance and incurring extra costs? Would insurance companies get sued if they denied them coverage? Would the employers?

Well I’m glad we sorted that out. I certainly feel better about this conversation now.

What about tax breaks if polyamorists have children? What about adoption? If a religious adoption agency said no, would it get sued for discrimination? Does polyamory produce a wholesome environment for the child? Apparently the polyamorists say yes. After all, one of the partners may already have a child, and now she lives with loving, built-in caretakers and babysitters. No need to hire strangers. Heather has two daddies and two mommies who “share” their love.

Yeah, see, that’s kinda the problem here.

People are already creating these familial structures and many times they are doing so from the base-point of legal protected marriages.

Sure, four person marriage with full legal parenting rights to each party may still be eons in the future away, but groups composed of one or more married couples and possible live-in partners who all contribute to the raising of children already happens.

And as the studies show, more hands on deck to pick up when one parent is stressed out is pretty much always a good thing. It’s a large reason why the dominant family model for ages was one in which multiple generations of a family lived under one roof all helping with the raising of the children.

Our newfangled isolated two-person nuclear family trying to do the best they can is a remarkably new invention and a pretty radical shift with regards to family model.

Also, am I the only one who is reading deep and bitter envy in this paragraph. The way he spits about those damn polyamorous people and their live-in babysitters right on hand at a moment’s notice. You just know he was recently asked by his overworked wife to change a single diaper while he was writing this and he’s grumbling the entire time about how polyamorous people don’t have to change diapers and they get to have sex with who they want and grrr, unfair!

Despite the confusion, this question still remains: since same-sex activists are redefining marriage in the law, how can we logically deny advocates of polygamy and polyamory their right to redefine it legally? If we did, we would be called “polyphobes.”

Dude, you’re right! We do need to start thinking up a term to describe people who reflexively and irrationally hate polyamorous people and are otherwise overprivileged bigoted assholes. Now that we’re starting to move into that phase, we’ll definitely need something to call you. Polyphobes is good, but we might be able to improve on it.

Hmm, monogamist…-ist? No that’s fucking stupid. Hmm, poly-ist, anti-poly… poly-cheese-monger… hmmm, if anybody in the comment thread has a better one, please throw it up. It’d be disappointing if this clown got to name our bigots for us.

The outcome of all these three nonconformist arrangements — SSM, polygamy, and polyamory – is a muddle, for now. It’s taking SSM some time to be acceptable; I imagine it will take polygamy and polyamorous marriage even more time. But we’ll be told it’s inevitable.

Yes, the future of SSM rights is totally up-in-the-air right now. Definitely. There could be a turn-around any day now for Team Homophobe, yup.

One Canadian judge recently concluded polygamy harms children, women, monogamy, and society. But another judge, even the U.S. Supreme Court, finding expert testimony like the scholars at AMJA, and citing a long history of polygamy, might redefine marriage in multiple ways because she (or they) believes a variety of nonconformist marriages would not harm anyone or society. Such marriages may even benefit society.That’s what we’re told by the elites like religiously conservative al-Qudah and al-Haj, and socially liberal McCullough and Hall, odd “bedfellows” who tear down traditional marriage.

As to SSM, we’ll find out in July 2013 what the Supreme Court will rule. I hope the court sends the issue back to the people. Activist judges open the floodgates to redefinitions with no end in sight. Any small clique that legally decides this issue for more than 310 million Americans puts democracy at risk.

… um. I should point out here that despite trying to muslim up the shit sandwich which is polygamy as a religious practice to try and bury the bodies, polygamy pretty much sucks and is the go-to argument for homophobes and … sigh… polyphobes alike entirely because it is traditional marriage.

It’s objectionable because it is super “traditional”. Because in those communities, women are viewed as property, men are viewed as the inherent head of the household, gender roles are enforced, and notions like love, consent, communication, and protections against abuse are often considered secondary at best.

Because these relationship structures most closely hew to the “traditional” structure that wingnuts bitch about preserving is the very thing that makes them a problematic subject to cover and will always make a discussion about extending legal protected family creation to polyamorous structures problematic.

How do we extend rights to relationships of consent and love without further allowing asshole groups who essentially run family cults to have a handy tax dodge and make it even easier for them to abuse the current system? How do we handle the way we as a society automatically connect extremely retrogressive polygamous communities with more open polyamorous communities? Should we limit rights and restrict communication simply because the unsavory nature of this ancillary group makes the subject a bit unpleasant?

And isn’t the disinfectant of sunlight important to destroy the notion of “traditional” marriages once and for all and ensure that consent, love, and desire for the creation of a legal family continue to become universal values of modern marriage?

All important questions that I doubt I’ll see an answer for in my life largely because assholes like this are willing to use more traditional than thou assholes they would be gleefully supporting any other day of the year as a cudgel against, as he said, “nonconformist arrangements”.

However, Obama not only endorses SSM, his administration refuses to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), signed into law by the legislative and the executive branches, all elected by the people.And down the slippery slope we slide.

Are they fucking still on this goddamned whine about Obama not wasting government money on a doomed law?

You idiots do realize that it’s probably only the lack of a robust defense that’s protecting you from having a judicial or legislative level repeal of the law, right?

SSM activists have been battering down the door of Ye Old Institution of Traditional Marriage; therefore, the advocates of polygamy and polyamory are now taking up axes and sledge hammers.

~One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn’t belong.~

Next come the wrecking ball and the professional demolition crew of politicians and judges.

While the demolition is going on, the whole edifice is sliding down the sloppy, slippery slope.

Muddy business, that.

Slippery slope! Oh god, please believe in the slippery slope. I mean, I went to all the effort of finding a minority group that might legitimately have a shot at being a “next in line” for rights due to legitimate grievances instead of the usual “man on bear” sidetracks, so it’s gotta work this time.

Please…

Oh Jimmy. Sadly, no!

But thanks, your research has created an important milestone for my people. One we will grow more and more to appreciate as you shift your resources from making LGB lives miserable into making poly and trans lives miserable.

~In the Ci-rcle!! The Circle of Str-i-i-i-fe!~


‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. C’mon wingnuts, go for the gold. Asexuals are making a mockery of religious abstinence. Asexuals are failing to uphold their appropriate gender role in The Game. Asexual is just another word for nazi. Pick one! We are aware of all Internet traditions.™


 

Comments: 282

 
 
 

the late night owl gets the worm…

 
 

And bellyflopping naked down a slippery slope! Wheee!

 
 

Thirst!

 
 

More partners = more lube = easier time slipifying the slope.

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

they’re make believe, like the Easter Bunny or Market Forces.

Some things just make me smile. This was one.

 
 

Yet it would not be limited to one heterosexual husband and four heterosexual wives as we see in Islam’s old-school polygamy. Instead, we’re entering a brave new world, so any combination of men and women and sexual orientation would do (e.g. four “husbands”).

Oh noes! Set my hair on fire, quick, Jeeves! It’s not like polyandry has ever existed ever.

 
 

This guy would really shit a brick if he read anything by Ursula LeGuin. Especially Tales of the Inland Sea. I think that’s the one.

 
 

What about the employers providing the partners with insurance and incurring extra costs? Would insurance companies get sued if they denied them coverage? Would the employers?

Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if your health insurance didn’t depend on your spouse’s/parent’s employer?

 
 

Yeah, because a contract between equal partners is totally like a contract between more than two…

Oh, wait, no it’s not. Ugh.

 
 

While the demolition is going on, the whole edifice is sliding down the sloppy, slippery slope.

Dibs on Werner Herzog for the movie adaptation.

 
 

Crissa-

Yeah, it’s really sad that we have absolutely no models anywhere in contract law for how to create contracts between multiple parties.

Ah well.

 
 

Yeah, because a contract between equal partners is totally like a contract between more than two…

Most of the mouth breathers get stuck when you say that civil marriage is a contract.

Then they get an owie cuz their brain hurts.

Kind of how Christmas is an ethnic tradition AND a religious holiday, and being a dick to anyone who says “Happy Holidays” isn’t just poking a stick in the eyes of atheists, it’s thrashing anyone who was born into another religion? Well, trying to discuss the legal implications of plural marriage to someone who can’t figure out that the fight for civil marriage is a fight for civil marriage and not a religious putsch argle bargle as if what the Unitarians do in the privacy of their coffee klatsch has any bearing on Fire-Breathin’ Baptist Unreformed Missionary Position Hallelujah Jesus Shekinah Life World Ministries’ unreconstructed, fundamentalist Whole Bible faith in the name of Jesus by the Grace of God AMEN members’ religious practices.

 
 

Dibs on Werner Herzog for the movie adaptation.

I admire the cut of your jib. But he has to act in it, too.

 
 

Ya know, the only problem with polygamy is that it usually involves coercion and a patriarchal, authoritarian culture. You remove those bad things, ensuring the consent of all involved parties, and there’s no problem.

 
 

Hey, B4, thanks for the shoutout in the last thread. I am always here reading – I just so seldom have anything worthwhile to say.So, thanks -mwah.

 
 

Hey, B4, thanks for the shoutout in the last thread. I am always here reading – I just so seldom have anything worthwhile to say.So, thanks -mwah.

I always look forward to your posts, which usually come right around dawn in these parts. You are always a breath of new life in a moribund thread.

I couldn’t let your fellow Southern Hemisphere residents take all the glory.

 
 

You also need to make sure that all the parties consent to … all of the parties being party to the contract.

IOW, polygamous groups would need to have a special polygamous marriage contract which every single party would have to sign off on. Every time someone is added, everybody existing has to agree.

One of the things that sucks in polygynous cultures is that first and second wives typically don’t get say about second and third wives. You often find in ancient marriage contracts stipulations against the man finding another wife or at least marrying another wife without her consent. US law automatically bars multiple marriage and considers this fraud, protecting the “innocent” party against being unwilling drawn into some sort of chained marriage contract (which could cause serious problems with debts, tax liabilities, as if a single person isn’t enough to take care of). Of course, the degree to which this is really salient has a lot to do with how much people depend on individual’s incomes and specifically a certain partner’s income (or domestic product), so, yeah, industrialization and the modern state are destroying traditional values! Woo!

You have to realize from a western context, monogamy was something of a reform.

I don’t think creating a workable legal framework for polygamous unions is impossible, but people are fecking stupid, so there will have to be a lot more awareness before the conversation gets beyond “icky! muslims! i tried that in college and it sucked!” and we can even have a modicum of the stuff in place to even contemplate actual legislative change.

Marriage is really complicated. Just look at civil unions, and how they didn’t quite work out. (Would be nice if states would have kept that DP structure, though, instead of treating it as a temporary fix… it would be really useful as its own thing.)

Sorry, Cerb, I betcha when the lawyers and legislatures and activists really start talking about making something like this happen, they will point at the CU legal battles and start making slippery slope arguments all over the place. “And then they’ll take away OUR marriages!!eleventyjesus”

I wonder if one could work out some network of marriages and domestic partnerships or something like that. I… oh fuck it. It’s not that it’s too damn hard to figure out. It’s that nobody wants to and people are dumb.

 
 

poly-crackers
anti-polies
poly police
polyhorrorers
polyanalysists
pollywollydoodlers
multipartaters
onomatopeons
polygamorons
shitheads

 
Comrade Rutherford
 

“You also need to make sure that all the parties consent to … all of the parties being party to the contract.”

The party of the first part shall be referred to as the party of the first part.

I don’t like that part.

Alright, we’ll remove it.

The party of the second part shall be referred to as the party of the second part.

No, I don’t like that part either.

OK, we’ll take that out, too…

 
Comrade Rutherford
 

“At this point it’s only a matter of time before poly people start having their own deeply disappointing overly-corporatized lobby organization to complain about being sold out by!”

Funniest thing on the web today!

 
 

Ya know, the only problem with polygamy is that it usually involves coercion and a patriarchal, authoritarian culture.

The only point of reference I have is some of these weird(er) Mormon offshoots out in rural Utah. Those tend to be pretty fucked up.

They have way more children than they can support and the boys are driven from the community when they become teenagers so they won’t be competing for wives with the patriarchs.

 
 

The real problem with a slippery slope: it’s REALLY slippery once it’s got Santorum all over it. 😉

 
 

Most of the mouth breathers get stuck when you say that civil marriage is a contract. – not a gator

My religious marriage is a contract as well.

 
 

Did they also tell you that gays only want to break up heterosexual marriages by being supernaturally sexy like gay incubii and that marriage is just a red herring to make stuck-in Christians feel super-jealous?

I’m asking in a totes heterosexual fashion, but your ideas interest me, perhaps you have a newsletter to which I could subscribe. Other than this one.

You also need to make sure that all the parties consent to … all of the parties being party to the contract.

Do you? Why can’t Alice marry Bob who is married to Charlie without having to marry Charlie herself? This sort of thing happens all the time right now, only with no official recognition of polyamory, Alice usually doesn’t find out about Charlie until years later. With the stigma attached to poly behaviour, it becomes difficult for important convsersations to ever occur. And instead of people openly negotiating the deeply personal complexities of human relationship – you get “cheaters”.

How hard is it? You enter into a public state-sanctioned marriage contract. Done. A couple wants to add a third member? They do it. The couple wants a fourth, but the third doesn’t want that specific person as a spouse? Done. One of the original couple wants to divorce one of the other three? Also – simple and done. Will this create some problems, lead to some people getting played by immoral partners? Sure, absolutely. But don’t pretend like that doesn’t happen in “traditional” marriages now. Also don’t ignore the fact that immoral partners still exist and are screwing folks over in the current regime. Widespread acceptance of polyamory would give their “victims” a means of understanding and framing their situation instead of being shackled to “acceptable” monogamous behaviour. And it would give “cheaters” a way of understanding their situations and a way of dealing with their personal needs without having to be deceitful shitbags. It’s really not that complicated.

Confession Time: I am deeply monogamous, I have been in my long-term committed relationship for more than half my life. I am fortunate in that the nature of my relationship is society’s preferred arrangement and thus I suffer no ill consequences as a result of it. It’s offensive to me that this very fundamental thing – society’s acceptance of my partnership – is denied to others.

Sadly, I think it’s a pretty steep hill for the poly community to climb. Socialization around “Monogamy is the only acceptable arrangement” is deeply rooted and ubiquitous. I like to think of myself as pretty progressive, but I’m affected by my Monogamy-Only upbringing and still feel some twinges of concern trollery when I think about poly-relationships.

 
 

Next thing you know, man on turtle.
~

 
 

Next thing you know, man on turtle.

Hyper-intelligent turtle capable of demonstrating consent? Okay. Even with their super creepy PENISes.

 
 

Next thing you know, man on turtle.

It’s turtles all the way down.

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

Even with their super creepy PENISes.

See?

AARRRGH!!!
Image,…permanent,…
DID.
NOT.
WANT!

 
 

But if we redefine marriage for one group, there’s no logical reason to deny other nonconformist advocates their right to do so, especially if they successfully argue their version of marriage on utilitarian traditional or Biblical grounds

Why hello, traditional marriage foot-bullet.

 
 

Haven’t read the whole thing yet so I may premature in expressing my amazement that for once they aren’t screaming THINK OF THE CHILLLLLDRRENNNN

 
 

Does “Biblical Marriage” mean I get to have concubines?

 
 

Does “Biblical Marriage” mean I get to have concubines?

No. It means you get to marry a bible. But only a hyper-intelligent bible capable of demonstrating consent. Even with their super creepy PENISes.

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

I wanted to let this go but, having gained some happy in ma brane, (the image of McConnell with an Ojibwe warclub schlong notwithstanding) I tuned into the Diane Rehm show for some background noise whilst catching up on chores. The subject? VAWA, Steubenville, India, and such as. Bad enough, but one of her guests was Phyllis Schlafly. (as it turned out someone called in eventually and asked how long the list of invitees was to get that deep into the barrel. Answer? Very, very long. Stunner, eh?) Her problem apparently is the name of the act since mens are just gettin’ our asses whooped quite regularly. …and something about sex-selection abortion.
That’s it.
No more news. My legs just can’t take another mind cleansing march.

 
 

Does “Biblical Marriage” mean I get to have concubines?

Sounds prickly.

What?

This is fur tigris

KITTY!

 
 

What about slave-girls? Those are totally in the Bible.I never realized the Old Testament was so kinky.

 
 

The “separate beds” thing isn’t what we think it is.

(Minor digression: I just watched “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” and was kind of surprised that they had separate beds…but the movie showed Mr. and Mrs. Blandings *showering* together. So I asked my film-historian friend about it, and she told me this. I have no reason to doubt her.)

It turns out that separate beds were a *status symbol*. This is totally lost to us today. During the Depression, people slept in separate beds to show how well off they were (“we can afford *two* beds!”), not because of some bluenose thing. The actual physical reality didn’t last terribly long–you know, the Depression and all–but the symbolic meaning remained. It actually has nothing to do with the Hays Code at all.

 
 

Lafcadio,

My mom tells me that when she asked her parents how come the couples on TV had separate beds but not her parents, her parents responded that the couples on TV were Republicans (I have heard other baby boomers (from Democratic families) got the same explanation): which worked because my grandmother did have a sister who was a Republican (as was the corresponding brother-in-law) and said sister and her husband did in fact sleep in separate beds.

 
 

The two beds business reminds of the time while, being led on the tour through Fallingwater (the famous Frank Lloyd Wright house near Pittsburgh), some adolescent expressed surprise and confusion that Kaufman (owner of the house) and his wife had separate bedrooms! “I don’t understand?!” The young docent screwed up his face trying to think how to answer so Teh Ho turned to the kid and said “You’re young. Someday you’ll understand.” Everybody chuckled and nodded in agreement. The docent looked at Teh Ho with a “THANK YOU!” expression.

 
 

Also, relevant?

 
 

Too busy working a proposal to be on topic today.

I’ll just share this: Robot Heavy Metal!

Definitely worth clicking thru to the youtube 1080p fullscreen version…

 
 

Oh, also this NPR story had me raving mad on the drive to work this AM.

Fucking fundie xenophobes. FSM forbid anyone try to interfere with the anxiety and paranoia you infect your children with.

 
 

Oh, Cerb, they hate you.. they really, really hate you.
Congrats!

 
 

Thanks for the RoboAceoSpades, that was great. For some reason I was expecting singing as well.

 
 

I’ll just share this: Robot Heavy Metal!

By your command….

 
 

Fucking fundie xenophobes. FSM forbid anyone try to interfere with the anxiety and paranoia you infect your children with.

my mom thinks there is something ‘wrong’ with yoga, she doesn’t think jesus likes it…but wev…

and it’s teaching religion because the kids ‘thank’ the sun for it’s warmth and giving them life and for growing things? wtf…uhhhhh, last i checked, the sun is pretty goddamn important to humankind…

thanks for getting my blood pressure up there, bughunter…i had just calmed down after reading the latest issue of the ‘hooterville indigestion’…do any of you sheepley obamabots know that he is like the ONLY president to take a vacation?!?!?!? and he just DID IT AGAIN!!! and to HAWAII of all places!!! jfc…wingnut publisher has also taken to ending his *column* with thomas sowell quotes…

my head…it hurts…

 
 

Oh, also this NPR story had me raving mad on the drive to work this AM.

I have reservations about the program as well. Now, I think teaching yoga to the kiddies is a great idea, but only if it’s fully gutted of all spiritual (as in supernatural) nonsense. Sounded like they were pushing religious bullshit along with the secularly “spiritual” wonder of yoga. I took yoga for one of my PE reqs in college. It was great (when I was able to walk again after the first couple classes gave me pains in places I didn’t know I had) and completely, toally, 100% free of religious bullshit.

Fucking fundie xenophobes. FSM forbid anyone try to interfere with the anxiety and paranoia you infect your children with.

I larfed at them saying religion shouldn’t be in schools because I’ll bet cash money those very people have pushed for school prayer. ‘Course, that’s their religion so it’s TOTALLY NOT THE SAME THING!

 
 

hmmm, if anybody in the comment thread has a better one, please throw it up. It’d be disappointing if this clown got to name our bigots for us.

“Junior Anti-Sex League” has been around for quite some time.

 
 

Robot Heavy Metal!
All they need now is a robot to fiddle with the amp settings for half an hour while the other robots stand around drinking lubricant.

 
 

Now, I think teaching yoga to the kiddies is a great idea, but only if it’s fully gutted of all spiritual (as in supernatural) nonsense.

This. I got a lot of yoga exposure early on and some of it stuck. Yoga is fantastic physical exercise. It’s low impact and it forces you to be aware of your body as you go through poses. You’re focused more on what you’re doing than on trying lose weight or that thing at work you still need to do.

But the spiritual New Age hippy dippy crud that goes with it? No thank you. Just give me some poses to strengthen core muscles, increase flexibility and help stave off the onset of chronic lower back pain.

 
 

I keep hearing same-sex marriage (SSM) activists assuring us that no one else will legally redefine the essence of marriage, after they enjoy the privilege of doing so.

We’ve already redefined marriage, brainiac. We redefined it when we decided that one man could only marry one woman, in contrast to the sky’s-the-limit polygamy practiced in the old (and Biblical) days. We redefined it when we decided that women were no longer to be treated as extensions of and dependent on their husbands. We redefined it when we decided that white people could marry black people.

So yes, maybe same-sex marriage WILL be redefined once more after gay marriage is accepted. What’s your point? Society survived the previous three changes just fine – as evidenced by the fact that you defend the current model as timeless and traditional despite the fact that it’s anything but. I suspect it’ll survive this one and whatever future ones are made too.

Seriously, y’all just really need to get laid.

Sometimes the slope exists, it really is slippery, and people actually slide down it.

Tell you what; I’ll concede that this is true if you, in turn, concede that it also applies to things like warrantless wiretapping, prison without trial, torture and all the rest of that shit, and there may be a potential for slippery slope there that’s more relevant than your “it’s all about terrorists, bro! No government that’s been given these powers would EVER use them on good honest law-abiding citizens! Honest!” line.

 
 

Sadly, we probably have a lot of growing as a society especially about the non-property nature of women and protecting against marital abuse to do before we can really get wide-spread support for non-fucked-up poly marriages with real legal protections.

People shouldn’t have to rely on an employer for benefits.

 
 

Hyper-intelligent turtle capable of demonstrating consent? Okay. Even with their super creepy PENISes.

“The Alarming Turtledongs” would be a great band name. For the record, my favorite alarming turtle dong video is this one– it’s a perfect blend of pure comic gold and sheer, unrelenting horror.

No. It means you get to marry a bible. But only a hyper-intelligent bible capable of demonstrating consent. Even with their super creepy PENISes.

Well played… you saw your opening, and you totes nailed it… VPR?

 
 

All they need now is a robot to fiddle with the amp settings for half an hour while the other robots stand around drinking lubricant.

Bender is probably available.

 
 

What about slave-girls? Those are totally in the Bible.I never realized the Old Testament was so kinky.

Ah yes, remember the Epistle of Paul to the Goreans?

 
 

it’s a perfect blend of pure comic gold and sheer, unrelenting horror.

*shudder* put a warning on links like that, sheesh. I mean turtle PENIS is frightening enough even without knowing about the flaring of the glans, but no one needs to see a video of it.

 
 

my mom thinks there is something ‘wrong’ with yoga, she doesn’t think jesus likes it

I’ve heard that. Something about the way people do yoga makes their minds much more susceptible to invasion by evil spirits.

Hmm? Oh yes, I said “evil spirits.” Also, Halloween really strengthens them and makes them come out in force, so you’ll want to watch out for that too.

… no, that’s not snark. Yes, that is literally shit that I’ve been told by fundiegelical friends acquaintances.

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

Robot Heavy Metal!

That’s the shit!

 
 

Masterpiece of snark: Steubenville rape crew outraged that their character is being questioned.

http://www.politicususa.com/rape-apologists-upset-stick-fingers.html

 
 

… no, that’s not snark. Yes, that is literally shit that I’ve been told by fundiegelical friends acquaintances.

haha…that’s totally my mom…

the hippie-dippie stuff in yoga totes doesn’t bother me…in fact, i rather enjoy it…makes me giggle…i love hippie dippie people…like my cousin who used to be just an obnoxious brat who really relied on her looks, ended up with grave’s disease and now has mottled skin and streaked hair…facial and all…she went through some seriously crazy times, like becoming a dead head, but has tempered herself a bit…she still finds delight in the smallest of things…she was doing dishes at my house this fall and she oohed and ahhed over the brush i use to wash glasses with…she said it made doing dishes ‘magical’…how can you not smile?

of course…a steady stream of it would make me stabby…but small does…hells yeah…

 
MC Simon Milligan
 

That chapter of Ezekiel is like a bronze-age Gelbooru (delving further than the front page is NSF… well, pretty much anywhere).

 
 

OK, I took a half an hour break for some lunch and also to make it thru most of Cerb’s post (with some tangential link-following). I have some specific comments I hope to get to later before the whole topic gets stale, but for now I want to share an entertaining thought:

I sure would like to see Arlandson’s head-asploding reaction to reading some later Heinlein*… or perhaps Samuel Delaney*… or, heh-heh, Piers Anthony.

*The Cat Who Walks Thru Walls
*Stars in my Pocket…
*anything post-Macroscope

 
 

delving further than the front page is NSF… well, pretty much anywhere

Well, that was………..different.

 
 

Well, that was………..different.

well, your comment made me curious…and yes…that’s…different…and now i can’t unsee it…gah! i am glad i didn’t click on any of the earlier turtle peni links…

 
 

People shouldn’t have to rely on an employer for benefits.

spoken like a true canuckian…i agree wholeheartedly sir, but then again, i am a well known subversive…

 
 

my mom thinks there is something ‘wrong’ with yoga, she doesn’t think jesus likes it…but wev…

and it’s teaching religion because the kids ‘thank’ the sun for it’s warmth and giving them life and for growing things? wtf…uhhhhh, last i checked, the sun is pretty goddamn important to humankind…

Once again, Lt. Uhura has the answer to your problems (though I couldn’t find a clip):

tell ‘er, “Hey moms, don’tcha see? It’s not the sun up in the sky……………it’s the Son of God!!!1!111!”

 
 

Re: Cerberus January 9, 2013 at 10:44

Yeah, we’ll need to create the contract law as we go. Minority partners, custom contracts, etc. As it is, in California, it’s totally possible now to have multiple equal parents/guardians without terminating previous rights because terminating a prior parent’s rights to add a new guardian is stupid.

But when it comes to many of the benefits of marriage – power of attorney, right to not testify, inheritance – things which are default in marriage to one, a poly arrangement will need to be more customized or have new traditions put into place that we don’t have now.

My point was just that it’s a contract law problem, not really related to marriage at all. Whereas with same sex marriage all you need to do is remove the gender from a few fields, you’ll need to import entire new segments of arrangements.

Anyhow, I’m also in an open relationship (because of my asexuality) as well, but my SO is so busy with her work and art that she’s had less outside relationships than I have had in our fifteen year partnership. Which is just weird.

 
 

I had the perfect Gor joke in response to the Major, but while I’m in a jungle performing an act that’s equal parts my normal work and playing Tomb Raider, B^4 put down his box of chocolates, got up from his chaise longue, and stole it from me.

CURSE YOU TIME ZONES!

 
 

Once again, Lt. Uhura has the answer to your problems (though I couldn’t find a clip):

Oh, hell yeah, she does!

 
 

Next thing you know, man on turtle.
Hyper-intelligent turtle capable of demonstrating consent?

HAPPY TO HELP.
Also too.

 
 

*shudder* put a warning on links like that, sheesh. I mean turtle PENIS is frightening enough even without knowing about the flaring of the glans, but no one needs to see a video of it.

Is “alarming turtle dong” not enough of a warning?

 
 

HAPPY TO HELP.
Also too.

That’s an interesting “reboot” of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I had the perfect Gor joke in response to the Major, but while I’m in a jungle performing an act that’s equal parts my normal work and playing Tomb Raider, B^4 put down his box of chocolates, got up from his chaise longue, and stole it from me.

Hey, now, I wasn’t scarfing bonbons on the Barcalounger, I was busy watering the houseplants.

 
 

while I’m in a jungle performing an act that’s equal parts my normal work and playing Tomb Raider

Where are you, if I may ask?

 
 

watering the houseplants

 
 

It means you get to marry a bible. But only a hyper-intelligent bible capable of demonstrating consent.
My helpfulness.
There is no end to it.

Oral sex with books!

 
 

This poor guy could use a POWER BOTTOM

Andrew Sullivan, your call is waiting.

 
 

Where are you, if I may ask?

Northern Thailand. Later, Cambodia.

 
 

Oral sex with books!

lick it! lick my book!

 
 

Later, Cambodia.

You on holiday?

Will you be checking out Angkor Wat?

 
 

Work. Inspecting ruins.

 
 

Inspecting ruins.

Shirley there are enough in NY.

 
A hyper-intelligent bible capable of demonstrating consent.
 

Did you know that the colophon is an erogenous zone?

 
 

Inspecting really old ruins filled with very creepy red bugs.

 
 

Inspecting ruins.

Shirley there are enough in NY.

Enough to warrant a book

 
 

Inspecting really old ruins filled with very creepy red bugs.

Sounds kinda Clark Ashton Smith-y… watch out for weird flowers.

 
 

Regarding yoga: As practiced now, the whole spiritual part and all the new-age crap seems to be just that, crap.

Cracked has a brief (and I’m not sure entirely acurate, but WTF, it’s Cracked) summary, but there’s also a book (warning, PDF link to flier about the book) and some other stuff (from a Hindu perspective) out there with more detail. So while the physical stretching and poses and such are perfectly ok things to do (I actually enjoy the Wii Fit “yoga” game), pretending you’re getting all holy and spiritual and shit while doing them is silly.

Bonus though: it’s always good to have another reason to make fun of “New Age” goofballs.

 
 

Inspecting the ruins.

Hmm, not sure about that one.

 
 

some other stuff (from a Hindu perspective)

Nevertheless nationalists of all kinds will take a supporting myth where they can find it.

Almost all of these results concern “legitimate” and government-sanctioned yoga programs in India, hogwash included.

http://www.google.lv/search?q=site%3A.ac.in+yoga&ie=UTF-8&nfpr=1

 
 

Yup. Still dead.

 
 

Regarding yoga: As practiced now, the whole spiritual part and all the new-age crap seems to be just that, crap.

If I correctly recall Mircea Eliade’s tome on the subject, the various austerities comprising your old-school pre-English yoga were painful and physically damaging, because they were designed to be painful and physically damaging. It was the “what-fails-to-kill-me-makes-me-stronger” approach.

The goal was to end up physically crippled but psychically empowered. Overcoming the resistance of muscles and joints was a way of overcoming spiritual foes, and by overcoming them you absorbed their strength.

Obviously there was not a great market for this in the Western world, so the cultural-renaissance scammers kept the name but swapped in new practices.

 
 

Is “alarming turtle dong” not enough of a warning?

That’s an enticement! Okay, there was plenty of warning what with the mention of sheer horror and such. Just needed to *shudder* more.

 
 

Oral sex with books!

Honey pot for the tongue but techy tummy later, if memory serves.

 
 

Almost forgot the obligatory Oglaf page!
http://oglaf.com/booklove/

 
 

Damn you Bimler! Missed it by *that much*.

 
 

HA HA HA
You have to get up early in the afternoon to put one over us Kiwis!

 
 

or stay up later…

 
 

Almost forgot the obligatory Oglaf page!
http://oglaf.com/booklove/

oh…wow…that’s a thing, eh?

 
 

No matter how late you stay up you can’t get a day ahead. I’ve tried.

 
 

oh jaysus! hubbkf is watching one of those dumb-ass “‘weird’ trick to slash your power bill & beat obama’s electricity monopoly for good”

guess who its sponsors are?!?!?

ooooooh…this video has been banned by google! and he doesn’t know how long he can keep it online…dah dah DUNHHHHHH!!!

 
 

oh feck…peoples’ power going out during a storm = liberals are ruining amurka…i shit you not…

 
 

Hmm, monogamist…-ist? No that’s fucking stupid. Hmm, poly-ist, anti-poly… poly-cheese-monger… hmmm, if anybody in the comment thread has a better one, please throw it up. It’d be disappointing if this clown got to name our bigots for us.

Monomaniac.
What? Too on-the-nose?

 
 

Polywanna crackers

 
 

That pastor from the earlier thread that wants cutting-edge fashion for all his pastor cohort is a…

Polyglamourist

(yada yada try the waitress and tip the veal, etc)

 
 

Monomaniac.
What? Too on-the-nose?

Bravo, good sir. Martini?

 
 

Dang, I’d-a given the guy a hundred bucks if he’d-a left the “L” outta “publically”.

Polywillydoodles?

 
 

Let me tell you about my granddog.

I still have no idea wtf that means.
.

 
 

My religious marriage is a contract as well.

If that is what I think it is, however, most of it’s only enforceable within religious courts which have been barred from imposing corporal punishments.

There is some accommodation in NY courts for religious divorces, if they are being withheld in order to inflict emotional distress and to create extralegal leverage in the matter of a custody of a child that has already been decided by the courts. It’s interference in religion but since it is causing actual harms the courts treat it like an actual matter in order to resolve the situation. Their ability to demand relief is limited.

The beit din cannot compel except by withholding religious (imaginary) sanction and asking nicely.

It’s actually a sort of shitty situation.

When the religious and secular authorities were one and the same in these matters, the religious courts could and did inflict corporal punishment to resolve such matters as withholding of a get.

Changing the religious law so that EITHER party could obtain a get has never crossed these male chauvinist kosher oinkers’ minds…

 
 

But don’t pretend like that doesn’t happen in “traditional” marriages now.

But of course! I’m not pretending it doesn’t happen now. It does happen. It’s harmful. How does it foster open communication to allow a spouse to secretly marry another without telling the first?

Also, I don’t care what emotional relationships A, B, C, and D have with each other. I’m talking about a viable framework to allow three parents to adopt the same child. And for that, you can’t just come in and BLOW UP existing marriage laws, which protect the participants against the person they marry from marrying someone else before divorcing them first.

Marry in this case has nothing to do with commitment ceremonies or sleeping arrangements. It has to do with which parties own the house when one dies. It has to do with who has custody of what child. It has to do with who becomes liable when one person racks up giant debts. Or who is a beneficiary when one dies without designating. Who’s the custodial parent. Who gets a lien on their car when another one causes a traffic accident and refuses to pay. All of this nonsense is what the GOVERNMENT cares about. They don’t give a shit if Sue is asexual, Bob practices fluid monogamy, Tracy is having crying jags on the Wellbutrin. They do care if Frank wants to get more involved with little Billy at school, but Frank and Billy aren’t biologically related.

 
 

wingnut publisher has also taken to ending his *column* with thomas sowell quotes

Truly a treasure of our time.

Sowell could make a mint selling vacation packages to La-La Land, after all the interest spurred by his travelogues.

 
 

Y’know Cerb, I never expressed my appreciation for your dry wit here:

~Dare to dream the impossible dream~

Traditionally, monogamy has been defined as relational and sexual exclusivity between one man and one woman.

…yesssss. That is true.

It was so crisp and refreshing. A delight.

 
 

First, I never said anything about secret marriages. I am pushing for public state sanctioned marriages. That’s the point, societal recognition of your chosen life partnership(s). There would be nothing secret about them.

But even if we were talking about “secret” marriages, still net positive. At the very minimum, it does away with the playing the mistress along by pretending you’re going to leave your wife. These cheaters wouldn’t have to leave their wives to marry their mistresses and the mistresses would know that.

Basically all that I am saying is that the benefit of poly marriages shouldn’t have to compete with some false goddamn never happened before idealized perfect marriage. That the standard for deciding on whether it’s a good idea should be versus the actual status quo.

I appreciate that kids change things, but I still don’t see how it’s complicated. Parents still divorce. They still abandon. They still disappear from their kid’s lives. And the remaining parents still try to move on. Forging new relationships with new partners. Step-kids get adopted by new spouses all the time. Even in circumstances of shared custody. All that complicated stuff about what to do about tge kids us stuff tge system already deals with, it is all happening with mono-marriages already. Further, as Cerb points out in the post – the poly version with non-tradition family arrangements is also happening, despite the lack of legal recognition. In fact it is happening in spite of the potential legal consequences.

That other point about “stuff”. Still not seeing the problem. In fact, poly marriages would solve someone the problems. A long term triad or whatever poly arrangement – it’s kinda nice to know that all partners of a deceased need to be considered. That no one get left out simply because the State refuses to acknowledge I ding outside if life pairs.

 
 

Whoa some weird typos. I blame Obama or iPhone.

 
 

Cerb: I’m a patient and careful reader. But I swear to God, I had to give up on this one; it seemed to scroll down forever. I appreciate the time and thought you put into all of your posts. (I also appreciate your personal engagement with this topic in particular.) Nevertheless, may I suggest tightening them a bit?

not a gator: Thanx for the Sperm Whale link in the last thread !

((Now Imma gonna ketchup with 115 comments….))

 
 

“Muddy business, that”

Is that a reference to santorum?

 
 

Also, for the record, I don’t think “biological relationship” is an important factor in parentage questions. I most definitely do not believe that adopted kids have any less significant a relationship with their patents than “normal” kids. So why should it matter if a kid is adopted by one step-parent or six? Especially if the reality of the kid’s life is that they have seven people parenting them.

 
 

Fire-Breathin’ Baptist Unreformed Missionary Position Hallelujah Jesus Shekinah Life World Ministries

I’ve decided to leave the Powerhouse Church of the Presumptous Assumption of the Blinding Light and sign ou here. (Of course, I will miss Our Lady of Pepetual Motion.)

 
 

Pastor Flash: you’re only allowed in this church if your style is seriously fab.

 
 

My style is indeed fabulous! I rely on Reverand Ed Young’s PastorFashion.com

 
 

Sometimes the slope exists, it really is slippery, and people actually slide down it.

Tell you what; I’ll concede that this is true if you, in turn, concede that it also applies to things like warrantless wiretapping, prison without trial, torture and all the rest of that shit, and there may be a potential for slippery slope there that’s more relevant than your “it’s all about terrorists, bro! No government that’s been given these powers would EVER use them on good honest law-abiding citizens! Honest!” line.

Chris nails it.

(Also: “You’ve got nothing to be concerned about if you’ve done nothing wrong.”)

 
 

I ding outside if life pairs.

even though we have been having above average temps here, i ALWAYS ding INside…

 
 

New guess about N_B’s Secret Location: Toltec or Aztec ruins in the jungles of the Yucatan.

 
 

My style is indeed fabulous! I rely on Reverand Ed Young’s PastorFashion.com

in that case, where may we mail your r.e.y.f.p! tee shirt to? also, you must choose between the following designs:

remember–it’s godly, not goofy!

OR

hey kids! jesus is hep!

 
 

Little known follow up after the bibble:

Beards And Robes, A Fashion Compendium

If you can get ahold of the second edition with the fancy illustrations you’re in for a real treat.

 
 

Dang, I’d-a given the guy a hundred bucks if he’d-a left the “L” outta “publically”.

‘Publicaly’ is NOT A WORD.

 
 

Northern Thailand. Later, Cambodia.

My guess(es) were FAIL city. Fooey.

 
 

Parents still divorce. They still abandon. They still disappear from their kid’s lives.

They also die.

 
 

Re: not a gator January 10, 2013 at 4:44

Exactly, the reason for these arrangements is to simplify things, not to create big headaches down the road.

 
 

Pollymorffs
Polynannies

Welp I finally caught up. And now everybody’s gone. And I’m alone here all by myself.

Gonna run away because I’s a-skeered!

 
 

Crissa! Gee, I suppose refreshing first is a good idea. I’m no longer a-skeered, but I’m a tired puppy (almost 2 AM Eastern), so I’m going to trundle off to bed anyway. I hope all the nightowls have mucho grande fun !

 
 

Let’s have a polyamorous relationship but not tell the wife about it.

 
 

I’m down with that!

 
 

Polly want a morous?

 
 

Count me in.

 
 

Me too

 
 

Polyticks
Moanopoly

 
 

<a href="
Nifty critters. Good site btw.

 
 

polywog – group marriage for Australian immigrants

polysci – group marriage scientists

polymorph – group marriage for morphine addicts

polyanna – group marriage for people named Anna

polyandriod – group marriage for Data, Gort and Robbie the Robot

polyester – group marriage for chemical compounds

 
 

Polly want a morous?

Sorry, Polly gone.

 
 

Major: I see what you did there.

From kg’s link:

When polymorphism exists as a result of difference in crystal packing, it is called packing polymorphism

(There’s gotta be a ghey joke in that, but I can’t think of it….)

 
 

Character name: Polly Morff

 
 

Predicted temperatures in Baltimore over the weekend:

Saturday (12th): 72 degrees / 57 degrees
Sunday(13th): 68 degrees / 57 degrees

Charm’s City’s weather is always like that in mid-January. Climate change, what is it?

 
 

Where IS everybody? Thread can’t be dead yet.

 
 

Climate change, what is it?

I think we broke the planet.

 
 

Yay broken planet! Famines for everyone! Refugee camps for the displaced! What’s not to love about ignoring the causes of, and accelerating the process of global climate change? Ever wanted to go surfing in Richmond Va? Ever wanted to recreate the dust bowl? Just wait and you can! Welcome to the future, hope you brought enough food and water for everyone.

 
 

polyphonic — group marriage via conference call?

 
 

Also: I larfed!

 
 

Welcome to the future, hope you brought enough food and water for everyone.

Yay more exploitable crises! We’re approaching the crisis singularity where every waking moment is a crisis that we have to make exceptions for…

I’m having a crisis crisis. A metacrisis.

Jesus fucking crisis on a crutch.

 
 

Just wait and you can! Welcome to the future, hope you brought enough food and water for everyone.

I’ve brought plenty of water and thanks to fracking it’s all flammable so we can use it as fuel as well.

 
 

Yay broken planet!

I hope our upside-downer friends are getting through the ridiculous heat and wildfires unscathed.

 
 

polymaths — group marriage of a math class

polynomial — group marriage of meme fans

 
 

On the upside once the Antarctic ice sheet melts there will be a cool new landmass (or set of islands depending on where the sea level stabilizes) that will make the Southern Orkneys look lush and overgrown. We can all move there and freeze while we mine coal and gas and gold and watch the last few penguins and seals die of industrial pollution.

 
 

On the upside once the Antarctic ice sheet melts there will be a cool new landmass (or set of islands depending on where the sea level stabilizes) that will make the Southern Orkneys look lush and overgrown. We can all move there and freeze while we mine coal and gas and gold and watch the last few penguins and seals die of industrial pollution.

We have to figure out how to kill off the horrible creatures that live beyond the Mountains of Madness first!

 
 

“Charm’s City’s weather is always like that in mid-January. Climate change, what is it?”

Eh, just wait a few minutes; by then it will be pouring torrential rain at 10 below zero with a 90-mile an hour wind. In all seriousness, weather here is a bit peculiar. I’ve seen it snowing here in various years in June, July and August (4 storms, all in different years). It helps I’m in a glass-walled building about 100′ up, so I can see the snow flurrying before it melts as it gets down to ground level. I bet that’s more common than you might think with violent summer thunderboomers. As for the high temperatures, since we reinvented ourselves as a cool, happenin’ sort of town in the 90s, we’ve been hot, hot, hot. Nothing to do with global warming, we’re just getting warmed up to go to the Super Bowl. Plus everybody’s fired up right now, what with Ray retiring and all. I better stop there before I get more overheated.
As for this latest installment of “If I don’t approve it, you all must remove it” that Cerb is getting steamed up about, if these doofuses (doofi?) get to pontificate about how we all must live our lives, then dammit, I should have a shot too. Accordingly, I hereby decree that we should all be allowed to marry in the traditional manner of our forebears, as handed down through the generations from time immemorial, and sanctified by traditional religious practice. That is, pretty much anything goes. If you want a wife for sons and mistresses for funs, that’s cool. If you want as many wives as you can support, more power to you all. If you want one or more husbands, I’m down with that. Serial monogamy? Why not – just change your spouse when you change your smoke alarm battery. Self-affirmed marriage by mutual consent? Write your own vows, and formalize them at the same time. Heck, marry your dog if you want, why should I care? I speak for God in this, and He said for me to tell you all that these guys are just full of garbanzos (God doesn’t like to swear; it’s especially uncomfortable for Him when He takes His name in vain). None of them bothered to ask Him before they started spouting off about what He likes and doesn’t like. They’re only speaking for themselves, and a whole lot of them aren’t too socially ept, if you know what I mean. Oh, and while we’re at it, He particularly asked me to pass on that He really doesn’t care for “those miserable Psalms – they’re _so_ depressing.” He said next time He does a book, he’s doing it himself instead of getting a Holy Ghostwriter.

 
 

Most of the Sadly,No! poems show that we are, as a group, polymorphous, per verse.

 
 

packing polymorphism
Polyfilla.

 
 

We have to figure out how to kill off the horrible creatures that live beyond the Mountains of Madness first!

When has the U S of A ever broken a sweat or lost a moments worth of sleep exterminating whatever’s sitting on top of our god-given oil?

 
 

I say negotiate with the Shoggoths.

 
 

More wingnut fun: Eric Bolling complaining about math lessons.

Eric Bolling: Schools ‘pushing the liberal agenda’ by teaching algebra

“But even worse is the way some textbooks are pushing the liberal agenda,” the Fox News host explained, pointing to an algebra worksheet that Scholastic says gives students “[i]nsight into the distributive property as it applies to multiplication.”

“Distribute the wealth!” Bolling exclaimed, reading the worksheet. “Distribute the wealth with the lovely rich girl with a big ole bag of money, handing some money out.”

~

 
 

Why should Americans sit still in the face of the threat from Al Jabarra?

 
 

Not to mention the threat of al-ku?l the insidious product of medieval alchemists!

 
 

The distributive property is theft.

 
Glenn Beck, numerophobe,
 

The distributive property is a socialist conspiracy!

The associative property is a commie plot!

The commutative property is part of the gay agenda!

 
 

tigris owes me a coke.

 
 

Al-ku-hall, he exclaimed.

The Caliphate comes for us all!
~

 
 

“But even worse is the way some textbooks are pushing the liberal agenda,” the Fox News host explained, pointing to an algebra worksheet that Scholastic says gives students “[i]nsight into the distributive property as it applies to multiplication.”

“Distribute the wealth!” Bolling exclaimed, reading the worksheet. “Distribute the wealth with the lovely rich girl with a big ole bag of money, handing some money out.”

When did Pinter, Ionesco and Albee start writing for Fox?

 
MC Simon Milligan
 

polyanna – group marriage for people named Anna

Seriously. Who writes this shit?

 
 

one Free Republic rant about the evils of asexuality

Sadly, it’s more likely that identifying as asexual will move them to think you’re “one of the good ones” and praise your self-control.

 
 

LEAFS SUCK indeed! They just fired Brian Burke.

 
 

He’s baccccccccccccck…

John Brennan was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center under George W Bush, and was said to be President Obama’s original choice to head the CIA. Brennan withdrew from consideration for the post amid protests, as he publicly supported the CIA’s policies of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques and extraordinary rendition.

~

 
 

i really have to stop watching the weather channel…this morning they showed two video clips from ‘office space’ and then they had a story about the bootstrappiest town…after which stephanie abrahms said, ‘that’s what america needs more of!’

 
 

Co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle explained that the algebra worksheet had put her on “high alert” for the liberal agenda in her 6-year-old son’s curriculum.

so they are teaching six year olds algebra now? gads, my school career would have started sucking that much earlier then…

 
 

Look out when the commies ask six-year-olds to SHARE STUFF.

 
 

Commie rhymes with mommy, and don’t you fergit it.
~

 
 

and then they had a story about the bootstrappiest town…after which stephanie abrahms said, ‘that’s what america needs more of!’

Collectivism?

 
 

Collectivism?

you know, i’m not sure what she was driving at…it seemed like ‘hey peeps, quit asking the gubmint to bail you out all the time!’ but apparently, it’s okay to ask your neighbors to bail you out? i don’t know…i was half asleep and was still a bit freaked out by the whole ‘office space’ thing…

i’ve been ‘off’ all day…i think i might be coming down with the rampant cooties that are EVERYwhere…but then it could be a fibro flare up since the weather is definitely taking a turn…

who knows!

 
 

Glenn Beck, numerophobe, said,
The distributive property is a socialist conspiracy!

Knee-jerk reactions are a REFLEXIVE PROPERTY.

 
 

Better than any rational argument or objective debate, this deluded nutjob gun fetishist serves as a far better example of why we need far more regulation of guns, qualifications for who can own them, and better mental health care.

In a sane country, that public statement alone should disqualify him from the right to be a member of a well-regulated militia.

And Rick Perlstein has a great series starting on how the NRA and the gun culture is fetishising vigilantism, in glaring contrast to the “well-regulated militia” that our founders saw as “necessary to the security of a free State.”

 
 

the bootstrappiest town

Readers of Flaming Carrot #16 and #17 know that the bootstrappiest town is Wecovine, NJ, which is beset by Nazi jackboots (as a result of the machinations of Zerbe the Cloner). Many of them are indeed trapped.

 
 

same-sex marriage (SSM)

In weapons-speak: Surface to Surface Missile (SSM). Example: The SCUDs the Major was hunting in the Gulf War were SSMs: They fire from the Surface (a mobile launcher* in Iran) to the Surface (e.g. Israel.)

Now SSM will have another meaning in the military-speak. Good, say I.

 
 

What the hell am I doing up at 4:47 AM?

 
 

I dunno, Fenwick. What are you doing?

 
 

The New Yorkers are holding out on us. They should have let us know there was a town in NY state called Coxsackie. According to wikipedia it is just down the road from Climax. Yes, I have the sense of humor of a 3rd grader.

 
 

Better than any rational argument or objective debate, this deluded nutjob gun fetishist serves as a far better example of why we need far more regulation of guns, qualifications for who can own them, and better mental health care.

Reposted from wingnut relative’s Book of Faces: someone who broke into a gun owner’s house was shot five times and “only hospitalized.” This, according to the relative, is evidence that high capacity magazines are important and should not be restricted. Apparently, it’s not enough that the person was put down and hospitalized. Unless he died a bullet-riddled corpse, justice simply hasn’t been served.

 
 

They should have let us know there was a town in NY state called Coxsackie

Heh. You said “Cox”. Heh. Heh.

 
 

Better than any rational argument or objective debate, this deluded nutjob gun fetishist serves as a far better example of why we need far more regulation of guns, qualifications for who can own them, and better mental health care.

is it too much to hope that the gunbonering wingers will soon self implode? gads, i hope dude’s not perpetuating the species…

Coxsackie.

what ho! i’m jacksie from coxsackie!

 
 

There’s a job in the Navy called a “Coxswain”.

 
 

how’s your coccyx?

 
 

Oh, none of this gets me upset, I’ve had, I would say, aproximately three or four different partners as my wife of a quarter century grows and changes. Sometimes I don’t know who the hell to expect when she comes through the door and yells: “Moosie! I’m home”.

 
 

Mooser said,

January 11, 2013 at 19:19 (kill)

Teh Ho is fond of yelling out, as he steps through the door when coming home, “Get your dick out of my husband!”

 
 

aproximately three or four different partners as my wife of a quarter century grows and changes.

heh…the volunteer who came in to work with me yesterday told me that she was in some mood and that her husband was afeered of her…

even though your comment was kind of smart ass’sh, there is a great amount of truth to that…the person you marry isn’t necessarily the person you end up being married to years later…why should one or both of you have to suffer through it because of some ridiculous monogamistic ideal? i’m all for being mono, if that suits you…hubbkf and i are mono, but there’s been times where we’ve both thought of greener pastures…but in the end, it’s the ‘us’ part of the relationship not the sex that has kept us married and monogamous even though we are both incredibly big flirts…well, the us part and low self esteem combined with reality…

 
 

Teh Ho is fond of yelling out, as he steps through the door when coming home, “Get your dick out of my husband!”

haha…i am going to try this some time…just for the reaction…

 
 

but there’s been times where we’ve both thought of greener pastures

Does it count when Mrs. Kong makes me dress up like Little Bo Peep?

 
 

Does it count when Mrs. Kong makes me dress up like Little Bo Peep?

i’ve GOT to meet mrs. kong…

 
 

If you’re ever in Columbus, Ohio.

 
 

Conservatives have had kids arrested and thrown in jail for less of a threat:
http://cbldf.org/2013/01/students-arrest-for-doodles-echoes-2004-cbldf-case/ as an example

Anyone think this CEO will be arrested?

 
Rep. Phil Gingrey
 

I am not a real doctor. I just play one on Fox News.

 
 

“Mourdock basically said ‘Look, if there is conception in the aftermath of a rape, that’s still a child, and it’s a child of God, essentially,” Gingrey is quoted as saying Thursday.

well, except if you don’t believe in god, or you believe in a different god…

and no, aiken was NOT right in any way shape or form…why do these dickwads continue to think they have anything to say about rape except that it’s wrong, no means no and words of support NOT equivocating bullshit?!

 
 

Because during their whole lives as pampered and powerful white men they have never been criticized for making statements in favor or patriarchy or white male hegemony and they think its totally confusing and not fair to have to think about the opinions of people who aren’t privileged white men?

 
 

oh, yeah…duh, shoulda thought of that…

 
 

but there’s been times where we’ve both thought of greener pastures
Greener postures. Also.

 
 

Greener postures. Also.

uh, for the record…i ain’t no slouch…

 
 

Greener postures. Also.

And… we’re back to Yoga again.

 
 

And… we’re back to Yoga again.

You rang?

 
 

This is made of shameless blogwhoring. Click toward it!

 
 

jim, you crack me up…

 
 

greener pustules

DO NOT WANT

 
 

“We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he?”

NO. Also: FUCK YOU.

 
 

Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight

Do not accept a glass of wine from anyone giving you this kind of advice.

 
 

God damn, NRA president David Keene was just on NPR and said basically nothing we can do about guns will stop all gun crime, so obviously we should do nothing. This just after he wrung his hands about mental illness, as if a registry of people who’ve talked to a shrink would stop all gun crime. And please don’t bullshit folks about how pro-individual-rights you are when you advocate a mental health registry. it’s embarrassing.

 
 

And please don’t bullshit folks about how pro-individual-rights you are when you advocate a mental health registry.

OK, I still don’t get this. WTF does the NRA want us to do with this “mental health registry”? Refuse to sell guns to the people on it? Or let them buy guns but designate armed-but-sane volunteers to watch over them?

 
 

I don’t know, it’s not like they’re pro-background checks now.

 
 

I heard that NPR story as well and wanted to just f****** punch something

 
 

The cool thing about mental illness is that it never just sneaks up on you and you go nuts killing people.

 
 

The cool thing about mental illness is that it never just sneaks up on you and you go nuts killing people.

I know, right? I mean, all of the recent shooters had scads of warning signs and interactions with law enforcement before they went off the rails. The NRA’s plan is foolproof and you moonbats should just roll with it.

 
 

The cool thing about mental illness is that it never just sneaks up on you and you go nuts killing people.

It hasn’t happened to me, much.
.

 
Marion in Savannah
 

Heh. Even the gun shows don’t want their nuts to carry loaded guns:

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/11/1435631/gun-show-safety/

So it would follow that the guns aren’t dangerous, it’s the BULLETS that are the problem. Well, easy-peasy. Just ban bullets, unless you can fabricate your own bullets and casings…

 
 

The cool thing about mental illness is that it never just sneaks up on you and you go nuts killing people.


The lexicon sorely misses “went postal.”

 
 

From Marion’s linky: We respectfully request that you do not bring any loaded firearm into the gun show. Safety is our Number One Priority, and a safe environment in the show can only be maintained if there are no loaded guns in the show.

*snerk*

 
 

For the record, “The Gay Incubii” was the name of my band in college.

 
 

WTF does the NRA want us to do with this “mental health registry”?

I assume that the fact of its existence will keep everyone well-behaved and non-shooty, whether or not they have been placed upon it by the approved witchfinders. A well-registered society is a polite society!

Any laws designed to stop registered individuals from owning guns would soon come under constitutional challenge from some well-funded gun-advocacy lobby or another.

 
 

Broun [R-GA], who added that “I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old,” will remain on the science committee in the 113th Congress.

 
 

I heard that NPR story as well and wanted to just f****** punch something

Me too. I was seriously pissed.

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

Nope. Won’t do it. Won’t listen or read unless it’s funny. I made the mistake of watching The Daily Show, and,…the funny was almost outweighed by the smoldering in my gut. Not worth it. No NPR. No news. No Facebook. A friend got deaded the other day spinning on black ice on his way to work. Slammed into the back of a parked semi. Nope, no Facebook. I’m gonna crank up WMNC, and work on fixing the bathroom wall, shower enclosure, and hang a new medicine cabinet.
Fuck all the stupid.
Youse guys get with the bein’ hilarious and toilet humor annallat.
K?

 
 

Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome.
Time for ziss vonn to come home.

 
 

This just after he wrung his hands about mental illness, as if a registry of people who’ve talked to a shrink would stop all gun crime.

To the depths with the mental illness registries. Make a registry of gun owners (if they want everyone to have to reregister to vote, it can’t be a crime to register handguns). And make it PUBLIC.

If one of my neighbors ever has a breakdown on account of his wife leaving him, losing his job, or whatever happens to make people crack, I’d like to know if that breakdown might involve him opening up on the neighborhood.

If NRA members think everyone knowing who the gun owners are will make them targets, well, 1) congratulations, you just invalidated your own claim that gun ownership is a deterrent, and 2) considering that NRA members at this point pretty much openly admit that the reason they have guns is because they crave that shining moment of glory when they gun down a Bad Guy at high noon, they can hardly complain if we start sending them targets.

 
 

I had a “conversation” with a drunken asshole at a family partywho said he goes to the shooting range and just imagines that black face coming through the door. All this said in the presence of my cousin’s Haitian girlfriend.God I hate that fucking asshole.

 
 

I had a “conversation” with a drunken asshole at a family partywho said he goes to the shooting range and just imagines that black face coming through the door.

It’s almost refreshing when one of them drops all pretense of civility and lets us see what we’re really dealing with.

 
St. Trotsky, Pope-in-Avignon
 

Kong: But he didn’t say ‘asshole’ or ‘fuck’, so he’s still civil while we’re the scum of the earth. That’s what civility means, right?

 
 

A friend got deaded the other day spinning on black ice on his way to work. Slammed into the back of a parked semi.

I’m sorry to hear that, Mayor. Black ice is awful. Also sudden fog walls.

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

Funny

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

Tyv tror hver mand stjæler

 
 

Your hovercraft is full of eels?

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

See,…now THAT’S funny!

 
 

It’s almost refreshing when one of them drops all pretense of civility and lets us see what we’re really dealing with.

If you’re not arguing with them about politics, or otherwise arguing in a way that puts them on the defensive – if you’re “just talking,” IOW – it’s almost surprising how easy it is to get them to say hair-raisingly prejudiced things, or to admit that yes, there’s still racism and basically they don’t care, they’re fine with it.

Kong: But he didn’t say ‘asshole’ or ‘fuck’, so he’s still civil while we’re the scum of the earth. That’s what civility means, right?

And he’s not a racist either. Sure, he said “that black face,” but he was clearly talking about Obama’s face which happened to be black, not generalizing about ALL black people. And you’re a racist for assuming that’s not what he meant.

 
 

We all know by now that Obama isn’t on our side and that every “negotiation” involves him allegedly “compromising” to give the GOP what they want, but what’s been particularly disturbing is how Congress – including the Progressive Caucus – supports him in the end.

Norman Solomon: “A sad pattern of folding in the final round has continued. When historic votes come to the House floor, party functionaries are able to whip the Progressive Caucus into compliance. The endgame ends with the vast majority of the caucus members doing what Obama wants. That’s what happened on the first day of this year, when the ‘bipartisan’ fiscal deal came down. Widely denounced by progressive analysts, the bill passed on the House floor by a margin of 44 votes – with the Progressive Caucus providing the margin. Out of 75 caucus members, only seven voted against it.”

I’m pretty sure the administration must be using some pretty heavy threats to keep them in line, and we all saw Dennis Kucinich, with visible reluctance, finally back down on his promise not to support the health insurance bill if it didn’t contain at least a public option (and Markos Moulitsas announcing on television that Kucinich should be primaried if he didn’t vote for it anyway).

But, you know, there are 72 (seventy-two) members of the Progressive Caucus, and if they all stood together and made a public stink about this stuff, this might not be so easy. It’s up to the rest of us to call their offices, write letters to them and to the press, and generally scream bloody murder about the fact that this is a big issue and it’s not being covered. Personally, I’d like to see Rachel Maddow deluged with letters asking for illumination on the process of shutting down the PC’s objections to Obama’s agenda and forcing them to fold.

Avedon
~

 
 

Wish I understood human relationships.

 
 

More burning resentment from ittdgy.

 
 

More burning resentment from ittdgy.

mee-OWWW!
.

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

Again,…funny.
Thank you. I knew youse guys would come through.

 
 

So much for guns being lifesavers.

Obviously, guy did not have enough guns. If he was only a little better armed,,,

 
 

More burning resentment from ittdgy

Purity troll is purely trolling.

 
 

Whoever posted the link to oglaf.com – curse you!

I was able to do nothing else online until I finished reading every damn strip.

And now I’ll be in my bunk. For about three days.

 
 

Whoever posted the link to oglaf.com – curse you!

Hahaha! I hope you victory was worth it Bimler!

 
 

And now I’ll be in my bunk. For about three days.

That was pretty much my reaction the first time I read it.

 
 

Shorter this article: “Hey, young writers, get off’a my lawn!”

Basically he’s saying that stories with objective constructed narratives are inherently better than ones that deal with personal experience. He also says that film, television, and modern technology have destroyed our ability to discern meaning from the world, and ignores the fact that they’ve given us access to other perspectives that help to complete the picture.

Personal subjective experiences are important to read, whether it’s from fiction or reality. For one thing, this is often the primary way that people belonging to oppressed groups (women, POCs, sexual minorities, etc.), who have been historically excluded from the “greater narratives”, are able to express themselves.

I also strongly disagree with his idea that spectacle in fiction is a new thing brought on by modern technology. I’ve read enough schlocky Victorian books to know that.

I did some searching on this guy and found that he wrote an article saying that Stewart and Colbert aren’t good political comedy because they aren’t radical enough, all the while praising South Park. I don’t like this guy.

 
 

More burning resentment from ittdgy.

And from me and Cadre 18.

Solidarity, Ibn Thundra

 
 

Shorter this article: “Hey, young writers, get off’a my lawn!”

Whatta maroon!

At the level of the individual, our lives have become unmoored from traditional sources of meaning, our families of origin and hometowns and spiritual beliefs.

Of course, the reasons that our lives have been so unmoored tend to economic problems inflicted on us by the “Masters of the Universe” and a wholesale downward spiral of religion into authoritarianism, fundamentalism, and hypocritical sexual pathologies.

At the level of the species, we’ve harnessed science and technology so effectively that we now face at least one verifiable existential threat, in the form of global climate change.

Global climate change is not due to our effective harnessing of science and technology- it’s due to the stunting of science and technology by the oligopolistic fossil fuel industry and the asshole politicos and journamalists they buy. BTW, I saw one of these parked on the street in midtown Manhattan this morning- I’m not a car guy, but this was one hot ride, sucker even had solar panels on the roof.

Another thing about wanker-boy’s screed is that there are other existential threats such as nuclear war, asteroid strikes, pandemics, and the like. One of them is due to the bad application of science and technology, the others can be mitigated by good science and technology, if we have the sense to get serious about solving such problems.

 
 

Big Bad Bald Bastard said,

January 13, 2013 at 5:48

Righteous rant bro! No really, I mean that sincerely.

 
 

Shorter this article: “Hey, young writers, get off’a my lawn!”

Ah. So someone who teaches Creative-Writing courses (rather than being a creative writer) complains that students and most authors from Hemingway onwards are inspired by cinematic conventions rather than literary ones. Except that the complainer doesn’t know shit about cinematic conventions either.

 
 

Righteous rant bro! No really, I mean that sincerely.

Get your dick out of my husband!

 
 

Hello? Thread? THREAD!!!

 
 

Well, if you’re not going to let us stick our dicks in your husband, there’s not much point sticking around in the thread, is there?

 
 

Righteous rant bro! No really, I mean that sincerely.

Me too.

[He] complains that students and most authors from Hemingway onwards are inspired by cinematic conventions rather than literary ones. Except that the complainer doesn’t know shit about cinematic conventions either.

Laffed, Smut.
(Also, thanx fer the link, Spear. And hiya.)

 
 

So I made some awesome cauliflower cheddar soup. Secret ingredient: ground coriander. I was just rummaging through my spice and herb rack shelf pantry when the coriander caught my eye. Fabulous. Bed of baby arugula with sherry wine vinegar vinaigrette topped with herbed sauteed chicken thighs. The soup. Marvelous dinner.

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin (who is facing an unpleasant recall)
 

…and it begins with what we in the narrating business call…

Yawn.

 
 

Imagine the scorn that “we in the narrating business” would have heaped upon Clarissa or Tristram Shandy, had they been around at the time. Fortunately the job of Creative Writing Tutor had not been invented in the 18th C to tell authors the right way to do it.

 
 

Imagine the scorn that “we in the narrating business” would have heaped upon Clarissa or Tristram Shandy, had they been around at the time.

I re-read Tristram Shandy last summer. Two secondary characters–Uncle Toby and the Corporal–are among my favorites comedic pairs in literature.

 
William Shakespeare
 

Fortunately the job of Creative Writing Tutor had not been invented in the 18th C

Stuff and nonsense. I was a Creative Writing Tudor.

 
William Shakespeare
 

Long before Mr. Sterne or Mr. Richardson, I’ll have you know

 
Christopher Marlowe
 

Shakespeare, you fraud, I will never forgive you for your outrageous thievery.

 
Samuel Richardson
 

I had a difficult time writing Clarissa using only letters of correspondence between the principals of my tale. I should like to attempt a modern novel using a similar caprice with only e-mails and tweets for text. Only I cannot because I’m dead.

 
 

I’m still dead, too.

 
 

So is this thread.

 
 

New post.

And fuck my cold.

 
 

[…]marriage to a Vegas hooker in the presence of my Elvis impersonator peers[…]

Way, way way late to the party (sorry, busy), but had to mention that this was my marriage. Though we only had one Elvis rather than multiple Elvii, and the Significant Other has never actually been a prostitute, just an enthusiast. Still going fifteen years later, so I guess Reverend Rudy at the Graceland Wedding Chapel knew what he was doing… 8)

 
 

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